Games, beer and burgers at Barcadia

Barcadia (601 Tchoupitoulas St., 504-335-1740; www.barcadiabars.com), a concept that mixes vintage arcade games, craft beers and burgers, will open soon in the Warehouse District. Frogger, Ms. Pac-Man, Mortal Kombat and other coin-op classics will line the space, and the bar will feature roughly 40 beers on tap (and more in bottles) and the kitchen will stay open late.

Barcadia is taking shape in the ground floor of a parking garage off Poydras Street, where the developers also are building an upscale cocktail bar called Ohm Lounge. Barcadia is expected to open in early January, with Ohm Lounge following later in the month.

Barcadia is an expansion of a concept that has two locations in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, but the New Orleans edition is coming in with local partners as well. Stan Ripp, who runs the Warehouse District event space Generations Hall, is developing Barcadia here in partnership with the concept's founder, Billy Blatty, who has operated several bars in New Orleans — and, incidentally, whose father, William Peter Blatty, wrote the novel and screenplay for The Exorcist).

"We thought it was perfect for New Orleans and for this space," Ripp says. "It's all about beer, games, rock and roll and burgers."

For those burgers, they've brought in Nick Hufft, a New Orleans native who has gained a following in Baton Rouge for a food truck called Curbside, which serves burgers around a circuit of lunch and late-night locations. His menu at Barcadia will include appetizers (such as fried pickles), salads, eight or nine burgers (one with over-easy duck eggs) and sandwiches (deli-style hot pastrami, bratwurst). Hufft says he'll continue to run Curbside in Baton Rouge.

In addition to a main room and open-air patio, there will be a second room, used on busy nights and available for private parties, with its own bar, patio and a game room stocked with air hockey and more contemporary games.

Ohm Lounge will open next door, with a drinks list handled by Ricky Gomez, a former Cure bartender and current brand ambassador for the international beverage company Diageo.